Ugly is in the eye of the beholder

I got this recipe from a Canadian House & Home magazine. After staring at the picture mostly for the super nice table that the dessert was photographed on, I started thinking. Hmm, I have ramekins. I just mix stuff together and put it in an oven? It has maple? Ice cream optional (aka, necessary). Let’s do it.

In a large bowl, combine butter and sugars and blend. Add eggs and vanilla and beat to incorporate. Add flour and baking powder and mix well. Refrigerate for at least an hour.
While that’s chilling, bring syrup and cream to a boil stirring continuously. As soon as it starts first hint of boiling, take off the heat, add salt and let it cool, and then stick in the fridge.

Heat (Preheat doesn’t make any sense) oven to 450F. Take 6 ramekins, and spoon a couple of tbsps of the sauce in the bottom and then fill the ramekin with the cake mimxture. Slowly pour remaining syrup over dough, it will sink into the holes. Bake for 20 to 25 mins, or when a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Let cool, and then serve with ice cream.

A note about ice cream that I just found out. A lot of brands of ice creams (cheap ones) in the US/Canada are not legally allowed to use the word Ice-cream on their boxes. So, they use the word Frozen Dessert instead. I think to qualify as ice cream, you have to use milk, and a lot of the companies use other forms of fat. So when you enjoy Breyers, just remember it’s not really ice cream.

Tina made this dish the other morning and it was amazing! We bought a huge pack of smoked salmon and were getting tired of smoked salmon on bagels with cream cheese, and she decided to make this dish to finish up the rest of the smoked salmon. We made this for breakfast, and I’d say this came out so good, it was like something you’d get served at a brunch place at the fancy brunch places here.

In a oven safe pot, lay the bread slices down in the bottom. Add tomato sauce and garlic. Crack 2 eggs and add the eggs on top. Put into the oven turned to 350F. Let it cook for 20 minutes. Take out of the oven and then add smoked salmon to the bread pieces. This is seriously amazing.

It’s been a while since I made any Indian dishes and being from south India, I love really spicy food. And by spicy I mean, laden with spices – not just heat. This dish is really tasty, lot of fresh ground spices and you can adjust the heat to your liking. The recipe below is what I would consider medium spicy, I think I would up the amount of pepper in the dish.

Method
Cut chicken into bite sized pieces. Heat 2 tbsp of oil in a wok on medium heat, and add the mustard seeds and cumin seeds. You’ll hear them crackle and pop. Once they start, add the cloves, bay leaves and the cloves. Stir for about 20 seconds and then add the onions and the jalapenos/serrano peppers. Add a dash of salt to help cook the onions cook faster. Cook the onions until they turn brown. Add the garlic and ginger and saute for about 2 minutes or until the raw smell of the garlic disappears. Add the chilli powder, turmeric powder, coriander powder and turn the heat down to medium-low and cook this onion spice mixture for about 4-5 minutes until you see oil starting to ooze out from the onions. Now add the tomatoes and cook for about 10 minutes, until you have almost a paste. Now add your chicken pieces and mix it with this sauce.

This next step depends on your patience. I’m a pretty patient person when it comes to cooking, so I usually turn the heat down to the 2nd lowest setting and then cover and cook for about 35-40 minutes. You can turn the heat to medium, and cook the chicken in about 10-15 minutes. Make sure the chicken doesn’t get overcooked. So every 3-4 minutes check to see if the chicken is done (no more pink). Once the chicken is cooked, coarsely grind the pepper corns. You can use the coarse setting on a pepper grinder, or you could just use a mortar and pestle. Or if you are ghetto like me, you put the peppercorns in a bowl and then take a can of tomato sauce and crush them with the bottom of the can.

Add the freshly ground pepper to the chicken and stir and mix. Add the finally chopped cilantro. Taste one last time for salt, and then serve.

I served it with Kerala porotta which I have no idea how to make, but you can buy frozen ones from an Indian grocery store and they are quite good.

There’s something so comforting about roast chicken. It’s fairly easy, and really hard to screw up. When I made this roast chicken, I just used an olive-oil and crushed red pepper rub. And some salt and pepper. Bought some fresh veggies and threw them in there as well.